Nidha Khan’s family and community are upset that she is supporting the policies of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In order to pressurise her to distance from the party, her husband had threatened her with talaq and acid attack.
On March 26, Khan had participated in a marriage function in Bareilly. Her husband and his relatives threatened her to quit the BJP. When she declined, she was threatened with divorce and acid attack.
“During a family wedding, my relatives coerced me to renounce BJP. I was surrounded by a crowd and got minor injuries. They said no Muslims from Bareilly support BJP as it’s a non-Muslim party but you have campaigned for it which is non-Muslim. I’ve filed an FIR,” ANI quoted Nida Khan.
Earlier, her husband Sheeran Raza Khan had divorced her through instant triple talaq. She had moved court against it and in 2018, a court in Bareilly invalidated this talaq.
The Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Bareilly Rohit Singh Sajwan said, “The complainant filed a complaint of relatives threatening her of a social boycott because she joined a specific party. A case has been filed against six people and an investigation is underway.”
Nida’s husband comes from a very influential Muslim family in Bareilly. Her husband, Sheeran Raza Khan, is nephew of influential Islamic preacher Tauqeer Raza Khan of the Ala Hazrat family.
Just before the assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, Tauqeer Raza Khan had joined the Congress party and exhorted the Muslims in the state to vote for the party.
Maulana Tauqeer Raza Khan had said in Bareilly on Friday January 7 that if Muslim youths take law in their hands, Hindus won’t find space to run in India.
“I see the anger within my Muslim youths and I am afraid that the day this anger bursts out, the day I lose control over them… I want to warn my Hindu brothers that I’m scared that the day my Muslim youths take the law into their hands, you will not find a place to hide anywhere in India”, Maulana Tauqeer had said.
Beheading Hindus call has been given multiple times by clerics in Bareilly and slogan “Gustakh-E-Rasool ki ek hi saza, sar tan se juda, sar tan se juda” [There is only one punishment for speaking against the Prophet and that is beheading] has been raised by lakhs of Muslims in Bareilly over many times.
In another horrific incident in Uttar Pradesh’s Kushinagar in the last week of March, 25-year-old Babar Ali was lynched by Aarif, Tariq and others for celebrating Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s victory.
Ali was a die-hard fan of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and had campaigned for the BJP in the recently concluded assembly polls.
After BJP’s massive victory in the election results declared on March 10, Ali had distributed sweets in his neighbourhood. This did not go down well with the members of his community and they warned Ali to distance himself from the BJP.
Ali refused to budge. He was happy with the development initiatives of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and requested his community members to do a fair analysis. But they kept asking Ali to shift loyalties to the Samajwadi Party.
On March 20, when Ali was returning from his shop, Aarif, Tariq and other community members surrounded and lynched him.
